Wondering what to do with calamari? This guide covers how to pick it, cook it, store it, and swap it, plus 8 recipes to put it to work.

What is calamari?

Calamari is squid prepared for the kitchen: the cleaned body (the tube) and the tentacles, sold fresh or frozen. The word is simply Italian for squid, and on a menu it usually signals a Mediterranean treatment rather than the plain English name.

The meat is lean and mild, with a faint sweetness and a clean ocean flavor that takes on whatever it cooks in. Raw, it is firm and slightly translucent; cooked right, it turns opaque white and tender with a gentle bite.

Squid punishes the middle ground. Cook it fast or cook it slow, but never in between.

Cooking With Calamari

The two reliable paths are hot and quick or low and long. A flash in a screaming pan or a 2-minute drop in boiling water keeps rings tender. Past that, until you cross roughly 30 minutes of gentle simmering, you get rubber bands.

Tubes get sliced into rings or scored and cut into strips; tentacles cook whole. For grilling, leave tubes whole, oil them well, and sear over high heat for a couple of minutes a side, as in Calamari Ripieno Alla Griglia where the body is stuffed first.

The long, slow route is more forgiving. A braise like One Hour Calamari in Umido with Ramp Bruchetta lets the meat relax in tomato and wine until it is fork-tender, and the same tender squid is folded into Ramp Ravioli with One-Hour Calamari.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

Calamari leans Mediterranean: tomato, garlic, white wine, lemon, chili, and good olive oil. It also loves the company of other shellfish, which is why it turns up in Best Shellfish Stew Alla Tarantina and in tomato-rich pasta sauces like Tagliatelle with Red Seafood Sauce.

The classic error is the dreaded middle cook. Two to fifteen minutes of heat is exactly the rubber zone, so commit to one end.

A second misstep is crowding a hot pan, which drops the temperature and steams the squid in its own water instead of searing it. Cook in batches and pat the pieces dry first.

Substitutes

The closest swap is cuttlefish, which is meatier and a touch sweeter but behaves the same way on heat. Octopus works in slow braises and stews, though it needs longer cooking to tenderize and brings a deeper flavor.

For a fried-calamari texture without the squid, firm white fish cut into strips or even shrimp will stand in, but you lose the signature ring shape and the clean chew. In a seafood stew, scallops or shrimp slot in cleanly since the dish carries the flavor.

Buying and Storage

Fresh squid should smell briny and clean, like the sea and nothing else. Any sour or ammonia note means walk away.

Look for firm, glossy flesh and intact, slightly translucent skin. Most home cooks buy it frozen, which is honest value since nearly all squid is frozen at sea anyway, and it thaws well overnight in the fridge.

Buy it cleaned to save real work. To do it yourself, pull the head and innards from the tube, slide out the clear quill, then peel off the speckled membrane.

Keep fresh calamari on ice in the coldest part of the fridge and use it within a day or two. Cooked calamari keeps three to four days refrigerated. Thaw frozen squid in the fridge rather than on the counter, and once thawed, do not refreeze it.

Quick facts

In Chinese

鱿鱼

British (UK) term

Calamari

en français

calamars

en español

calamares

Recipes using calamari

There are 8 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 8 recipes